Spalding Town (213) beat Skegness (211) by 2 runs
(Points – Spalding Town 19; Skegness 9)
Skipper Rob Ambrose admits that his Spalding Town side almost snatched defeat from the jaws of victory on Saturday.
Town picked up only their second Lincs ECB Premier League success of the season at Skegness, as they squeezed home by just two runs.
Having chosen to bat first, Luke Hollingworth (53), Warren Nel (38), Ben Smith (29), skipper Rob Ambrose (22) and Nuwan Jayasena (21) all made decent contributions as Town made a very competitive 213.
They were bowled out in the final over, though, as Brendan Young (5-43), Norman Brackley (3-42), Umar Farooq (1-49) and Pradeep Chanditha (1-35) all picked up wickets.
Chanditha (40) and Chris Graser (29) then put on 47 for the first wicket as Skegness looked intent on chasing down their target.
However, wickets from Jayasena (4-85), Charlie Kearns (1-53) and Jack Barrett (1-45) slowly turned the tide and left Town in command at 120-6.
The game took another twist when Brendan Young (48), Tom Cuthbert (47) and Mark Chamberlain (22) rallied down the order to get the hosts within touching distance of victory.
They helped Skeg reach 199-7, but Dan Milgate (4-18) stepped up to the plate to clean up the tail and leave the hosts two runs shy of Town’s tally on 211 all out.
Spalding remain bottom despite collecting 19 points from the contest, while Skegness claimed nine points themselves.
Captain Ambrose reckons his side should really have made 250, but was just thankful that they got over the line.
Ambrose said: “It was a very decent performance from the lads.
“To be honest, it was probably closer than it should have been – and at one stage I thought we’d thrown it away.
“I thought we left about 30 or 40 runs out on the field, so when then got down to a few runs to win it was getting very tense.
“Thankfully, we really went for it at the end and got that wicket – we deserved to win.
“I wasn’t sure if batting first was the right choice. In all honesty, I almost wanted to lose the toss so they could decide for us.
“But in the end we decided to bat, as we really need to get as many points as we can. It proved to be the right decision, even though facing Young was tough – he’s the fastest bowler we’ve come up against this season.
“Nuwan and Charlie both bowled really well from the off and Dan bowled superbly well to clean up the tail at the end.
“By his own admission, he’s not bowled all that well this season. But he really stepped up on Saturday.”
